As Kolles said he only got 2 hrs of sleep before flying to barcelona for yesterdays presentation, I guess everything is just thight schedule.

Most of the car is being built in Germany and Austria. Who knows, the dampers might be coming from Japan, China or India customer made.
Anyway with the washed out track today, was there so much to gain from running? Even instalation laps look pretty far off right now.

What a sketchy team. Why can’t they just admit they don’t have a freakin car ready to run yet.

Instead they clearly lied and built up a body with which to show off instead. It would have been a better PR move to just say there were “unforeseen delays” in the production of “x” part and due to this the team cannot build the car quick enough.

Anyone who believes they genuinely couldn’t make the race due to “customs” should re-read everything that was said leading up to last year. What a bunch of sucks.

Aren’t they meant to be a Spanish team? Isn’t Barcelona in Spain? Why are they trying import these things are the very last minute? How come the dampers are being shipped separately from the rest of the car?

The team is registered in Spain and competes under a licence issued by the Spanish motorsports federation. However, the car – or at least the offending parts – was not built in Spain. I suspect it was built in England, or at Colin Kolles’ base of operations in Germany. Or even Bahrain; the team was expecting to unveil the F111 at the final test in Bahrain and may have sent parts there in advance, but then the uprising began and the test was re-scheduled, so Hispania had to recall the parts. The short version is that they had to be brought into the country for the test. Just because you live in a country, it doesn’t mean you are exempt from customs. There’s nothing suspect about it.

You know for a fact that the parts were not built in Spain? Why would the parts STILL be in Bahrain? It was cancelled weeks ago. It’s fishy because how often do we hear that a F1 team can’t run because customs have impounded bits of their car? It’s suspicious that the only time it’s happened that I can remember is to the team that are struggling for cash, initially release a computer model of their car, and release their actual car, minus suspension parts on the 2nd to last day of a test

Yes, I do. How do I know this? Because if the pasrts were built in Spain, they would not need to go through Spanish customs.

Why would the parts STILL be in Bahrain? It was cancelled weeks ago.

The political situation did not stop with the race being cancelled. The protests kept going on for some time – I see everybody stopped caring about it once a decision was made about the race – and so the parts may have been stuck there for some time until it was safe to get them out. Or maybe Hispania figured they wouldn’t need them until the Barcelona test and saw no reason to ship them back to Europe until they were needed.

Itâ€™s suspicious that the only time itâ€™s happened that I can remember is to the team that are struggling for cash, initially release a computer model of their car, and release their actual car, minus suspension parts on the 2nd to last day of a test

How is it suspicious? Do you think Hispania somehow staged the launch of their car and then created an excuse not to run it when their entire goal this off-season has been to get to a test and put in some running? Why on earth would they do that? How could they possibly benefit from that unless their car is powered by embarrassment?

Hispania’s suspension parts are caught up in customs because they had to be flown in from somewhere else. It is not uncommon for a customs department to hold things for some time while they are being processed. Particularly if they need to be quarantined or checked. Suspension parts for a Formula 1 car are not something that goes through customs every day; it’s likely the Spanish authorities would want to verify them before approving them. Given the sheer volume of travellers going through an international airport every day – all of whom usually have to get their baggage inspected by customs – it’s no surprise that Hispania have been delayed. All they are guilty of is poor planning (though based on what they have said over the past few days, the parts were shipped to Barcelona the moment they were ready to be). But I already know there is no conspiracy to avoid testing simply because such a conspiracy does not make sense.

Kolles said that the dampers where coming from America. I have no idea why exactly.

Personally i think that the car was never meant to run and that’s just an excuse. The new car isn’t ready yet to start rolling and they found an excuse to get away with it and at least present the car as to not cast more doubts on whether they have a car by waiting until Australia.

I’m with Solo. So the car was complete and ready to run except there were no dampers. Right. Pretty suspicious to me also. If the dampers were coming from the States they were probably from Penske, but still this sounds like a preplanned escuse.

Ok, so who here believes the media wouldn’t have found out about it if HRT were lying and the parts weren’t actually stuck in customs?

Please. The media would be all over it. They would have found out.

How people can simultaneously claim that HRT aren’t organised enough to build an F1 car on time, but are organised enough to orchestrate a successful conspiracy good enough to fool the collective investigative power of the F1 media amazes me!

DVC, it might not be a conspiracy, but seriously if you’re rocking up to the final pre-season test never having run your car, and it’s missing key parts (we’re not talking experimental alternative wings or whatever), you really got to wonder whether the team is all that organised.

I would have thought you’d would install things like dampers onto the car back in the factory. Maybe also have the subcontractor build the parts nice and early, and have them sitting around the workshop until they are to be installed. When other teams ship parts out at the last minute it’s usually “nice to have” parts, rather than “our car won’t run if we don’t have this” part.

Like Team Lotus who had to miss running in earlier tests while they flew out the power steering â€“ thatâ€™s a â€śnice to haveâ€ť right?

Yeah but the difference is Lotus didn’t actually leave it to the very last test to get their car to the track. When a team only manages to send their car to the very last test, on the last two days of that test, and the car is missing parts that prevents them from doing any running you really have to wonder what is going on.

The chassis was apparently built by a german racing composits company, the wings prob. at Kolles place.

Who knows where those dampers and suspension parts come from. Might have been from China, India or Japan.
Or as you suggest being sent back from Bahrain.
And running today was possibly not worth the effort anyhow, given its more rainy than in Korea last GP at the track today.

Or America. Does it really matter, parts not there, customs suck.
Sure, HRTs or Hispanias financial troubles might have made customs stricter, but it can just as well be pure bad luck.

And as what PM writes on Bahrain is perfectly true. The protests and their handling by the government just got a bit more civilized, they are not nearly over. Your bad for losing interest in the country.

What mcmercslr said pretty much sums up the idiocy of most so called F1 fans. Do yourself a favour and go back to circlejerking over fake Team Lotus and whatever other typical crap gets eaten up by the usual suspects

all I can say is that I agree. It was so predictable and once again highlights the ineptitude of the team.

Regardless of where the parts came from, they should have foreseen issues in customs. Made allowances for it, launched it earlier to make sure for example. They didn’t though and once again their latest car hasn’t turned a wheel by the first race. Its borderline dangerous and massively unprofessional.

Red Bull does not mke its car in Austria, I don’t believe Mercedes make their car in Germany or Renault in France. ‘Honda’ was never made in Japan etc. And even if a car is built in the same country as its racing liscence, at least one of the thousands of parts will have been outsourced to a foreign company, becuse that company will either be cheaper or simply better than the local alternative.

Or they were planned to go to Bahrain, but then that cancellation screwed it all up. I’d imagine an autocratic centralised nation like Bahrain would have pulled a few quick strings and got the parts in the country in no time.

What a bunch of hogwash.
They’re one-shot parts for a race car to be run on a track in the custom official’s country that brings in millions of dollars. It’s not a freight-load of bogus parts that are going to be sold in a black market in Madrid.
By the way, where is Bernie Ecclestone’s influence in all of this? Or does he just shoot off his mouth about the new teams not being competitive and ignore the fact that they can’t even get parts to the track. The man is an ass.

Nobody has any influence over beurocrats. Logic and common sense don’t apply to customs. If customs in Spain is anything like customs in my country, they won’t care whose stuff it is, they will take their sweet time and probably demand the payment of a needlessly large fee and that several forms be filled in in triplicate.

Disagree. IMO a sport can’t be the pinnacle if they don’t give everyone the chance to compete, either directly through pre-qualifying or progression through lower formulae.

LeMans is now the pinnacle of motorsport. Genuine development takes place in that series, the cars are less restricted, they don’t have artificial aids to improve overtaking, the races test the equipment more being longer, and anyone can have a go not just the established franchises.

I’m being harsh on HRT but like nearly every news release now from them makes it look they are being run by a bunch of clowns. How are they going to attract sponsorâ€™s with these kind of headlines. Now they are going to Melbourne with no testing. Will be amazed if they make the 107% rule. Would like to see them succeed but they need to make some core changes to way the team is run and stop being such an embarrassment to F1.